When news broke that Nick Cannon is expecting his eighth kid with model and actress Bre Tiesi, it was both the most and least surprising news possible. On the one hand, Cannon has been pretty prolific at fathering children in recent years, but on the other, it came less than two months after the death of his and Alyssa Scott’s infant son Zen. Fans wondered how the Masked Singer host would officially share the news, and it wound up happening through an emotional opening segment on his talk show Nick Cannon, where he opened up about why they kept things quiet before now.
After opening up the show by referring to the episode as a family meeting, Nick Cannon kept things relatively light for a few minutes with some jokes about the Los Angeles Rams heading to the upcoming Super Bowl. ("Guess I’m starting my own football team, too.") But things took a more candid turn after he revealed the Pic of the Day to be one of him and the expecting mother Bre Tiesi. Cannon talked about seeing a lot of negativity angled his way online and on social media, and admitted he doesn’t have the answers for everything, particularly when it comes to big life moments. After sharing a recommendation for Anita Moorjani’s book Dying To Be Me, the talk show host directly addressed how the pregnancy news broke, and why they hadn’t shared it beforehand.
This whole process was extremely difficult for me because I’ve known about Bre’s pregnancy for a while now, before my youngest son Zen passed in December. And so even going through all of that, this was always in the back of my mind. When is the right time? How do I share this? We didn’t expect Zen to pass away. All of the news was so unexpected. So to try to figure out a chronological order or a hierarchy, it kept me up at night. I always talk about the guilt that I feel in losing Zen, and even how to deal with this for my other children, and that was a lot of the guilt as well. Guilt for everyone involved. And I just wanna say thank you to every one of my family members for understanding and helping me through this process.
That’s the kind of decision that no parent, present or future, should have to mentally sort through, and that particular brand of guilt is such that it might seem impossible to completely shake it, without anything to truly make it seem resolved. And while Nick Cannon has become the kind of open and candid entertainer where he can have these conversations about grief with his audience in therapeutic ways, he understandably wasn’t able to discuss that guilt in such a candid manner before Bre Tiesi’s baby shower pics went public.
Cannon also spoke about the respectful agreement shared between him, Alyssa Scott and Bre Tiesi, saying:
I wanted to definitely respect the grieving process with Alyssa, and Bre was respectful enough. She held off making her announcements and speaking on social media. She’s a very ‘in the public eye’ type of person, but keeps her stuff private as well. And it was just one of those things, I didn’t know what to do. To say it when I was dealing with Zen or to hold off. Even right now, that it came out yesterday, that wasn’t planned to talk about it. We wanted to hold on as long as we [could]. But it happened, we’re here, and I’m with my family. I get to discuss it, I get to be open. That’s the beauty of having platforms like this.
The timeline of events is such that, at the time when Nick Cannon talked about going celibate as a way to stop extending his biological lineage, Bre Tiesi was already expecting. So he seemingly didn’t break any rules, as it were, when it comes to celibacy ish.
Even though the past couple of months have been extremely hard on Nick Cannon, he’s definitely happy to now be able to celebrate his upcoming son with Tiesi, and had a message for anybody who doesn’t want to see him succeed:
I’m taking it one day at a time. But it is, at the end of the day, when a life comes into this world, it’s a celebration. And I’m excited, I’m happy. And y’all gonna go with me on this entire journey. So for all the doubters, naysayers, nonbelievers, pessimists, antagonists in my incredible journey that don’t wish me and my family a happy ending, well you gonna see. We gonna get to it. I’ma be the best dad I could possibly be, because I’m trying my best.
Here's hoping Nick Cannon and his supportive family can enjoy more peaceful and guilt-free moments in the future as they anticipate the arrival of pitter-pattering feet later this year.
Nick Cannon airs weekdays in syndication, so check your local listings to see when and where it’s available in your area. And keep up with our 2022 TV Premiere schedule to see when new and returning shows will be popping up soon.
